Source: E-commerce Online
In the county, a young man who started from scratch can become a multi-millionaire if he does not rely on strong network resources or deceit, but only relies on honest and responsible management. The path for a rich man is very limited, but Qin Shuo did it.
In the past five years, Hanfu-related companies have sprung up in Caoxian County. Those who used to work in the construction industry switched to selling horse-faced skirts; young people who went out to work wanted to go home and open Hanfu shops. Hanfu has become the "code to get rich" in Caoxian County. 26-year-old Qin Shuo has also seized on this trend. In 2023, his Hanfu store sales will be close to 20 million yuan.
In 2016, 18-year-old Qin Shuo gave up his studies and became a Beidiao. He worked as an assembly line worker in a carton factory, specializing in pressing out various paper shells with molds. Shape, "The days are repeated day by day, boring and boring." Half a year later, he left the factory and went to a car 4S store to become a salesman, selling Chery, Honda, and Audi. But he admits that he is not a sales person. When his performance is not good, his monthly income is even less than 3,000 yuan, "less than what he earns by folding paper boxes on the assembly line."
In 2019, Qin Shuo returned to his hometown and became one of the first merchants to make Hanfu in Cao County. At first, he just wanted to earn some pocket money, so he hung the Hanfu he got from a friend on Xianyu and sold it in less than half a day. Later, he began to buy design drafts, find factories, and make original Hanfu. He unexpectedly made one set after another of popular styles. Many items sold tens of thousands of sets. The photo studio "Zhenzhenlan" also came to order from him. , one order is for hundreds of sets.
Even Qin Shuo himself said: "I caught up with the good times."
Returned to Caoxian County and sold HanfuIn 2016, when Qin Shuo gave up his studies, Hanfu had not yet set off a trend storm in the market , many Caoxian businesses who later made Hanfu are still struggling in the performance clothing, hardware, wood products, beauty sales and other industries.
At that time, going out to work with relatives was the first choice of many young people in Caoxian County, and Qin Shuo was no exception. He followed his relatives to a paper shell factory in Beijing, where he was responsible for using molds to press out paper shells into various shapes. He earned a monthly salary of 4,000 yuan, "but the work was really boring."
Later Qin Shuo went to the car 4S shopWhen selling, from Chery, Honda to Audi, life is much more interesting. But he is actually not a sales material. In many cases, his monthly salary is less than 3,000 yuan, "which is just barely enough to support himself."
These experiences made him realize that there was no future in working. In 2019, Qin Shuo returned to Caoxian County, ready to look for entrepreneurial opportunities.
In those years, the Internet and offline activities promoted the widespread spread of Hanfu culture in the market. Qin Shuo’s friend’s sister opened a Hanfu store in Caoxian County. In order to earn a little pocket money, he and his friends hung the Hanfu from his sister's shop on Xianyu. The price was more than 200 yuan, and he sold it at an additional price of 40 yuan, and he sold it in less than an afternoon.
Qin Shuo vaguely realized that this was an opportunity. He studied the production process of Hanfu and prepared to make original Hanfu.
Unlike the big businessmen who later entered the Hanfu industry with large amounts of capital, Qin Shuo was born in an ordinary family in the county. When he started his business, he had no start-up capital. His mother gave him 20,000 yuan and agreed to pay all the losses. You are not allowed to start a business.
To make genuine products at that time, you had to make samples, pre-sell them first to see the market response, and then mass-produce them after having a certain number of orders. Qin Shuo spent 800 yuan to buy a design draft, but the design draft contained heavy-duty embroidery patterns at a cost of 30 yuan per 10,000 stitches. It cost more than 5,000 yuan to embroider the sample garment in total. In addition to making patterns, he also had to buy cloth. No one wanted to sell just a few meters, so he had to buy it in rolls, which cost more than 10,000 yuan.
I only made a sample of the first product, and the 20,000 yuan was almost spent. Most importantly, the clothes were unsaleable.
Qin Shuo didn’t know the sales channels, so he only promoted it in various Hanfu QQ groups he had joined before. In the end, he sold more than 10 sets, “not even reaching the number needed for the factory to start operation.”
He had no choice but to contact the dozen buyers who had placed orders and ask them to cancel their orders. Unwilling to give up, he learned from his first experience and bought a new design with less embroidery, which was simple and priced at 168 yuan. He promoted it in the QQ group, and finally hit it by mistake and it fit the trend at the time. popular trend and received more than 200 orders.
But at that time, the factory only accepted large orders of more than 500 sets. Qin Shuo approached two or three factories but was rejected. It was his mother.I found two small workshops with sewing machines in the village and took over 200 orders. The small workshop had never made Hanfu at all, so Qin Shuo went over to watch them every day and instruct them on how to make them.
After working overtime in a small family workshop for more than two weeks, he finally sent out more than 200 sets of Hanfu. Just the final reckoning, after working hard for a few weeks, I earned several thousand yuan.
But if you include the 20,000 yuan in start-up capital, after working for more than half a year, Qin Shuo not only failed to earn a penny, but also lost more than half of the start-up capital.
Use network traffic to get on the right trackAt the end of 2019, Qin Shuo, who almost lost all his start-up capital, was ready to give up.
But there was a Hanfu merchant nearby who was selling very well. Rumors in the village said that he could sell a truckload of Hanfu in a day. Qin Shuo was curious about how this was sold. He asked around, invited friends to dinner, and helped them with work. Later, his friends recommended him a grass-growing blogger and told him that he could use the traffic of these bloggers to promote on Douyin and Kuaishou, and then sell goods.
Qin Shuo suddenly realized. Before, he only promoted in the QQ group, which was full of Hanfu enthusiasts, but in fact it did not have any effect, and the target group was not accurate. However, Douyin and Kuaishou can use big data to push the product to those who actually have purchase demand. in the hands of consumers.
So Qin Shuo made the third Hanfu style. This time he no longer does any embroidery or printing, and simply uses solid color stitching to minimize costs. At that time, the Hanfu on the market was mainly for girls. He made the clothes the same for both men and women, asked male models to shoot them, and then found male bloggers to promote them. A video cost 1,400 yuan. The fans were unimaginably accurate, and a single blogger could lead Sales volume of several hundred sets.
Qin Shuo found six or seven people in the village to rush to work at the same time. "During that time, I drove over every morning and watched them making clothes, paying attention to the quality, avoiding cutting corners, and rushing home at night."
After the first batch of goods was sent out, Qin Shuo’s Taobao store had no negative reviews and traffic increased. But bad news also came one after another, and the new coronavirus epidemic came.
In the spring of that year, everything was unknown. No one knew when the factory would start operating or when logistics would resume. Many large stores that made Hanfu did not dare to launch new products or have new products. Actions.
But Qin Shuo’s first batch of grass planting videos had just started to take effect, and the first batch of goods were all well received. In the absence of competitors, the third product became the most popular product in the Hanfu circle at that time. A well-deserved hit.
From before the Spring Festival to the official opening, Qin Shuo had a backlog of thousands of orders. "At that time, I was working as a customer service person every day, answering messages, and I didn't even have a break on New Year's Day." .
Later in March, various places began to open up. He found factories to rush to work. After sending out the backlog of thousands of orders, he received more than 2,000 orders and sold nearly 8,000 sets of the same style. .
Every time he thinks of this experience, Qin Shuo can't help but sigh that he is lucky. If there was a problem in one step, we would not be here today.
To buy raw materials and find factories for production, you have to pay in advance, but there is a payment cycle after the clothes are sold. In the meantime, Qin Shuo not only maxed out his credit card, but also borrowed it from all relatives in the family, and still owed money. He robbed the factory owner tens of thousands of yuan, and he was so worried that he couldn't sleep for many nights before the money was returned.
Fortunately, at the final settlement, he not only paid back all the money, but also made an extra 200,000 yuan. This money also became his confidence to enter Hanfu.
He is determined to continue to follow the previous logic to make lower-cost color-blocked Hanfu, find cooperation with bloggers, and divert traffic from Douyin and Kuaishou to Taobao stores, thereby producing more popular items.
While making hits, new changes are taking placeQin Shuo enjoys the process of making hits and treats it as some kind of game.
When collecting market preferences in the early stage, it is like making a game guide. He will take the initiative to watch the most popular costume dramas on the market, follow the hot spots of cross-dressing on Douyin, make similar styles in TV dramas, and then find Hanfu bloggers collaborated to shoot videos and plant grass.
But slowly, the probability of a hit item is gradually getting lower. “If 2,000 sets are used as the standard for a hit item, it would be good if one of the three sets comes out.”
“After experiencing the best stage, it is always inevitable to encounter a downturn in the market.” Qin Shuo lamented.
At the end of 2021, as the New Year was approaching, Qin Shuo’s wife had an idea and thought that "Nian" is engraved in the bones of the Chinese people. Everyone has a need for New Year's greetings clothes, so why not make some Hanfu-style New Year's greetings clothes, " It was absolutely innovative at the time because no one had done it before."
Qin Shuo rushed to put this New Year's greeting dress on the store on the eve of Tmall's "Double 11", priced at 298 yuan, and included a hat, embroidered bag, fur collar scarf, and even a Chinese knot. On "Double 11" More than 500,000 yuan was sold on that day.
Later, a blogger with more than 4 million fans wore this outfit and held an event in Paris, attracting many Internet celebrity bloggers to buy it. By the end of the year, a total of nearly 30,000 sets of this New Year's greeting suit had been sold. "If the factory's production capacity was not limited, we might be able to sell more."
After the New Year's greetings clothes, the store has gradually developed its own style, but it pursues style too much and concentrates on making some fairy-like clothes with Chinese elements, and then adds some festive elements. At the same time, Qin Shuo also became the earliest merchant in Cao County to operate an official Douyin account. He no longer needed to find Hanfu bloggers. He could rely on his own Douyin account to help the store bring goods. He also released a lot of popular items and many clothing lists. More than 10,000 pieces can be sold for just one item.
This year, almost the entire Cao County is chasing the popularity of horse-faced skirts, but Qin Shuo remains unmoved, "I still want to concentrate on our current field."
It’s just that the market is changing rapidly. This year, more and more people are making Hanfu in Caoxian County, and the market is getting more and more popular. Qin Shuo, who is not as popular as the horse-faced skirt, has to make more changes in other directions.
At the beginning of the year, he built a small live broadcast room and formed a new live broadcast team. However, the logic of live broadcast e-commerce is naturally different from that of shelf e-commerce, so Qin Shuo had no choice but to design exclusive styles for the live broadcast room.
But before he could get familiar with the operating logic of live streaming e-commerce, the ultra-short product life cycle and ultra-high return rate had already given him a blow. In the past, a hot-selling style could be sold on e-commerce shelves for a few months, but now it becomes obsolete in 15 days in the live broadcast room. In the past, the return rate was 10%, which was normal, but now it is often 50%, so that he had to hire special workers. Be responsible for after-sales service.
“New problems keep happening, just like changing the wheels of a car on the highway.” Qin Shuo said.
As one of the first merchants to make Hanfu in Caoxian County, Qin Shuo witnessed the rise and fall of Hanfu in Caoxian County. At first, we made the lowest-cost color matching and cooperated with Hanfu bloggers to promote it, and it was easy to make a hit. Nowadays, more and more businesses are entering the market, and consumers’ aesthetics are constantly improving. Clothing without a sense of design is difficult to attract consumers.
Although the general environment and trends cannot be changed, he feels that he can do what he can, such as continuing to try live streaming to bring goods, broadening channels, setting up factories, better ensuring product quality, and minimizing the return rate. .
The past year was the best year for Qin Shuo’s store, with annual sales approaching 20 million yuan. At the beginning of this year, he bought an ideal car for his family, which was something he had never thought about when he was working as a salesperson in a 4S store.
His life changed because of Hanfu.Like many people in Cao County.
